Helen walked away from Mattie’s brightly lit yard, crossing the width of a driveway until she stood before the shadowed lawn that belonged to Grace. She noticed that crime scene tape still crisscrossed the front door, so she flipped on the flashlight and slipped around the house, following the driveway toward the door in back.
And there was Grace’s Ford tucked into her car port, too obscured by shrubbery for Mattie Oldbridge to see from next door. Helen shined her flashlight on the car. All the seats looked empty. The sheriff had mentioned finding Grace’s purse inside.
She figured he’d checked the trunk as well, looking for the hard copy of Grace’s manuscript. Helen found it quite odd that those pages had yet to turn up.
She approached the side entrance, settling her flashlight’s beam on the knob. The brass looked dirty, covered with the graphite Sheriff Biddle used to dust for prints. Helen removed a key from her pocket, stabbed it into the lock, and turned it with a click. She was reaching for a tissue that she could use to turn the knob itself when a pair of headlights fastened on her. She jerked her head around as a car bumped into the driveway. Its brakes squealed as it pulled up right behind Grace’s Ford.
Helen squinted against the brightness. She froze like a frightened deer caught on a back road. She had no time to hide, no chance to scurry off into the shadows.
The headlights cut off.
Helen’s eyes struggled with blackness once more.
“Mrs. Evans? Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” she heard a familiar voice grumble. “What the devil are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re breaking and entering.”
“Of course I’m not!” Helen weakly protested. She held her flashlight behind her back, but she could hardly hide the key sticking out of the lock. “Well, I’m not breaking, anyway,” she scrabbled to explain, “and I haven’t entered yet, have I?”
“It’s a good thing,” Biddle growled, “or I’d have to arrest you.”
He stepped around her and snatched the key from the lock, pocketing it. His hangdog’s face glowered. “Ma’am, this is a crime scene. You’re not supposed to come sticking your nose around here, especially at night. I’m conducting this investigation, you got that? I don’t need your interference.”
“Interference?” Helen sputtered. A jolt of fury rocked her. She was ready to let him have it again about just what she thought of his so-called investigation, but she stopped short and swallowed the angry words. “I just want to help,” she said instead, her worry for Nancy overshadowing all else. “I thought maybe fresh eyes could find something that was overlooked.”
The sheriff pursed his lips, staring at her for a long moment, and Helen was sure he was going to send her home or, even worse, drive her there himself.
But he sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I’ve already been through the house several times, and the county folks have taken all the photographs and fingerprints they’re gonna take. So I guess it can’t hurt if you come on in and turn on your spidey-sense.” He crooked a finger at her. “Just don’t touch anything.”
“I won’t,” she promised eagerly.
The sheriff shrugged. “Besides, I’d like to find that manuscript of Ms. Simpson’s. If you can turn it up, I might even deputize you.”
Helen knew he was kidding, but she didn’t care. At that moment, she could have kissed him.
“Okay,” she said simply, afraid to say more for fear he’d change his mind.
He pulled a wad of something from his pocket and Helen realized they were gloves. With some fumbling, he snapped them on. Then he used a key from a ring to let them inside.
Helen followed him as he turned on the lights, asking something that kept nagging at her brain. “If the manuscript is still missing, don’t you think whoever killed her took it with him?”
“It’s a good bet, ma’am, yes.”
“Then it couldn’t have been Nancy,” Helen remarked. “It wasn’t in Grace’s office, right? And you didn’t find it in Nancy’s apartment.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So you must have doubts,” she pressed.
The sheriff looked at her and pursed his lips. But he didn’t refute her statement, which Helen felt was an improvement. Maybe he was beginning to realize that solving Grace Simpson’s murder wasn’t going to be as simple as pinning it on Nancy.
“Let’s split up, all right?” he suggested. “I’ll head upstairs. You look around down here. But remember—”
“Don’t touch,” she finished. “Got it.”
He left her, and Helen decided she’d start in the kitchen. She did a simple walking inspection first, pacing the checkerboard floor and eyeing the pristine white counters. She moved into the breakfast room and rounded the drop-leaf table, a bowel of plastic fruit settled precisely in its center.
As she entered the living room, she inhaled a scent that wasn’t unfamiliar. But she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Was it perfume? No, that wasn’t quite it. She thought it might be a room deodorizer, though the vague odor made her somehow uncomfortable.
She spied the secretary that Nancy had said Grace always kept locked. Its desk had been pulled down, just as Nancy had insisted it was when she’d stumbled upon Grace’s body. Had Grace left it open? Had something important been removed?
Helen went over and peered into its depths. There were papers jammed into the cubbies. She figured the sheriff had already poked through them, There was nothing else that caught her eye.
She heard noises overhead and glanced up, knowing it was Biddle’s footsteps, his weight causing the floorboards to groan.
Helen was walking through the dining room when Biddle clomped down the stairs and remarked with a sigh, “It’s not here.” He scratched his jaw, looking baffled. “It’s like that manuscript vanished into thin air.”
“The killer took it,” Helen said, plain and simple.
Biddle didn’t respond.
“Nancy wanted that book published,” she told him. “She was practically the ghostwriter. No, someone else took it, someone who didn’t want that manuscript to make it into print.”
“I know where you stand, Mrs. Evans,” the sheriff replied.
“If nothing else was stolen, then someone was in this house last night for one reason and one alone: to kill Grace and to ensure that her publisher never printed the book.”
“Let’s go, ma’am,” the sheriff said and held open the door. “You want a ride home?”
“I’ll walk,” Helen told him for the second time that day, ticked off that he didn’t seem to be listening.
“Fine,” he replied.
And Helen stood alone on the stoop as Sheriff Biddle closed the door.
Chapter 21
MATTIE OLDBRIDGE PARKED her twenty-year-old Lincoln in the gravel and weeds by a chain-link fence. A dozen or so other cars already cluttered the makeshift parking lot by the river. Ever since some business-minded Grafton folk had decided to convert the old boatyard into a weekend flea market, the place never lacked for traffic.
Grabbing her pocketbook and sliding out from behind the wheel, Mattie smiled at the idea of people driving from the city out to this river town just to rummage through junk others had tossed out. And it was pricey junk at that. It seemed like anything that predated the Carter administration these days was called an “antique.” Once Mattie had even seen a pair of mood rings from the ’70s going for ten dollars each.
But once in a while, she’d find a real jewel: a lovely cherrywood table that needed only to be stripped and refinished, a crystal candy dish smothered beneath a layer of dust, and a blue sugar bowl with a chicken filial. The latter had been sold to her by a woman who’d found the piece “distasteful,” and which Mattie had since discovered dated back to the mid-nineteenth century.
She hooked her purse in the crook of her elbow and walked across the rough ground. A s
lope of pavement led downward to the opened doors of the barnlike structure that housed the flea market.
Mattie stepped out of the sun and into the shadows of the old boat works. A musty odor pervaded the cavernous room, the smell of things trapped too long in someone’s basement or attic.
Dozens of booths lined the walls and filled the middle. Fellow shoppers meandered about, hunting for a bargain. Music filled the air, dispersed by speakers near the front doors, but Mattie couldn’t even tell what song was playing. It was drowned out by the chatter of voices.
She took in as deep a breath as her lungs would allow, then she plunged forward into the crowd. She had no patience with paintings on velvet or glitter-glued sweatshirts or tables overstuffed with handmade crafts. What good did it do to cover a roll of toilet paper with a crocheted jacket? It wasn’t as if the things could catch cold.
Mattie knew what she liked, and it certainly wasn’t that. Good glassware always made her look twice. A gilded vanity mirror in great shape could inspire her to haggle. She wasn’t averse to buying a pretty rhinestone pin or charm bracelet now and then, or even a sleek cigarette case made of sterling silver.
Mattie paused.
Could it be? Was it possible?
She picked it up and studied it, turning it upside down and checking the mark on the bottom. With trembling hands, she opened it up to find an inscription: “To M, Love H.”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Mattie jumped at the brittle voice over her shoulder. She snapped the case back together and turned to the smiling woman who’d been watching her.
“How?” she began, but the word got stuck in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. “How did you get this?”
The woman lifted a hand to scratch at the red bandanna wrapped around her head. “It came from an estate sale,” she told her, so smoothly that Mattie would never have guessed it was a lie if she hadn’t known better. “It belonged to a well-to-do Alton woman who recently passed.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.”
Mattie held it to her breasts, which were heaving. She was furious. “No,” she said firmly. “No, it didn’t.” She felt tears rush to her eyes. “It’s mine,” she told the dealer. “It was stolen from my house last weekend.”
“That can’t be,” the woman said, but Mattie read the fear in her eyes.
“If you’d like, I’ll call the sheriff in River Bend,” Mattie said, lifting her chin. “He’ll be here in no time flat, and he can confiscate the case and check the description against the police report I filed.”
The woman glanced around her. A few customers inspecting items within her stall had overheard and stopped to stare. The dealer grabbed Mattie’s arm, her mouth set in a grim line. “Look, lady,” she ground out in an unfriendly whisper, “put the cigarette case back down and scram, all right? You’re spooking me and everybody else. I’m sure you’re just confused. You probably have that Old Timer’s disease everyone your age gets.”
Mattie took a step back so that her bottom bumped a table filled with mismatched pieces of china. The neatly stacked cups and saucers loudly rattled.
“I’m going to take out my phone and call Sheriff Biddle right now,” Mattie said, her voice rising. “And when he shows up and proves this is stolen goods, that’ll spook everyone even more.”
The woman’s eyes rounded, as if unsure whether or not Mattie actually had lost her mind. “I-I,” she stuttered, wetting her lips, “I’m sure we can settle this quietly.”
“No.” Mattie patted the cigarette case, still folded fast against her bosom. “No, I don’t intend to be quiet. For all I know, you’re the one who broke into my house and stole it!”
“Me?” The woman put a hand to her heart, looking every bit like she was going to have a heart attack. By then, a crowd had gathered around them. “I didn’t steal anything!”
“Then you shouldn’t have a thing to worry about,” Mattie told her, still refusing to let go of the case Harvey had given her almost fifty years ago, when the whole world had smoked and hadn’t known any better.
With her free hand, Mattie rustled her phone from her purse and hit a button, speed-dialing the sheriff. Like clockwork, he showed up not five minutes after.
Frank Biddle’s heavy boots clattered across the concrete floor as he entered the boat works and strode up the aisle toward the booth where Mattie remained in a Mexican standoff with the vendor.
The sheriff hiked up his pants and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “So where,” he asked, “is the item in question?”
Mattie held the cigarette case out to him, a catch in her voice as she told him, “This is mine. It’s one of the things stolen from my house. See,” she said and opened it up to reveal the inscription. “Harvey gave it to me for our first anniversary.”
Biddle took it from her hands and looked it over. “Sure appears to be the one you described in your report, ma’am.” He turned toward the vendor. “I’d like to know how you got this.”
“Well, I-I,” the woman stuttered.
“She told me from an estate sale in Alton,” Mattie said with a sniff. “And we both know that’s a lie.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” The woman’s hands went to her kerchief-wrapped hair. “I had no idea this was hot, or I wouldn’t have bought it.”
“Just tell the truth, ma’am,” Biddle asked.
“It was a boy, a teenager who brings me things sometimes,” she explained, shaking her head. “Every once in a while, he has a few nice pieces he tells me belonged to his family. Says they’re in a tough spot and need the cash.” The vendor crossed her arms. “Lots of folk are hard hit these days, so it came across as real enough. The kid seemed decent, short hair, no tats, and he talked about living with his grandpa.”
Mattie wrinkled her brow and looked at Biddle. The description sounded like someone from town, the boy who was always causing trouble.
“He had a crew cut?” the sheriff asked. “Was he about five foot six and wiry?”
“Yes, that’s him,” the woman said.
Biddle sighed. “Any chance he gave you a name?”
“Joe Smith.”
The sheriff gave her a look like You’ve got to be kidding.
“I know, I’m a fool,” the vendor admitted and gazed at Mattie with sympathy. “But if he’s stealing, can you blame him?”
“Could you identify him if need be?” Sheriff Biddle said.
“Piece of cake.”
“Well, if he should come by again, give me a call,” he told the vendor and gave her his card.
“I will.”
The sheriff nodded at Mattie. “C’mon, Mrs. Oldbridge. Let’s head back to town. I’ll meet you at my office.”
Mattie followed the squad car along the highway to River Bend, although her oversized Lincoln moved more slowly than his cruiser. She went straight to his office and waited there, as he’d asked her to. Not long after, he showed up, dragging in Charlie Bryan.
Mattie had known the boy’s grandfather for a good many years, so Charlie was hardly a stranger. But he was familiar enough to the rest of the town as well, more for his antics than his parentage.
Biddle ordered the boy to sit in a chair across from his desk. Mattie stuck to the bench just inside the front door, not wanting to get in the middle.
“Did you steal this?” Biddle asked the boy point-blank, shaking the sterling cigarette case under Charlie’s sunburned nose.
“What?” Charlie snickered. “Here we go again. I told you I didn’t break into anybody’s house, and it’s the truth.”
“That’s very interesting,” the sheriff said, perching on the corner of his desk so he towered over the seated boy. “A vendor at the Grafton flea market said she got it from a kid whose description fits you to a T. She’s more than willing to come in and iden
tify you.”
“Okay.” Charlie shifted in the chair so that one leg dangled over the arm. A beat-up tennis shoe jiggled violently. “So maybe I sold her the cigarette case. Big effing deal. That doesn’t mean I stole it.”
The sheriff shook his head. “C’mon, Charlie,” he sighed. “How else could you have gotten it?”
“Maybe I found it!” He spat the words and jumped to his feet. He curled his hands into fists and raised his voice so loudly that Mattie put her hands over her ears. “I found it, all right? It was in the grass near the creek that runs behind the old lady’s place. Somebody must have dumped it.”
Biddle didn’t appear to believe him any more than Mattie did. “Someone dumped it?”
Charlie stood his ground. “It’s true.”
There was something in his tone of voice that nearly made Mattie believe him. But then Mattie knew how easy it was for children these days to lie. It seemed to her that they thought nothing of it and no one taught them otherwise.
The sheriff stared at the boy forever and a day before he withdrew to a position behind his desk and settled into his chair. “You’ve been the one breaking into these women’s houses, haven’t you, Charlie?”
“No.”
“Maybe you even broke into Grace Simpson’s two nights ago, and she caught you,” the sheriff suggested. “So you hit her with a baseball bat and ran.”
Charlie stumbled backward. “No!”
Mattie tightly gripped her handbag, fingers trembling.
“I’m going to have to hold you for selling stolen goods, son,” the sheriff said, his voice still unusually gentle. “You can call your grandfather and tell him where you are, and I’ll talk to him, too, if he needs more explanation.”
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